Page 27 of Lost Dreams

Aurora tried to laugh it off. “Like what?”

Lorelei set down her butter knife. She looked nervous, as though she knew that Aurora had been going through her journals. “Everyone’s back in Rome,” she said instead. “Safe. They say it’s stifling. One hundred and five degrees.”

Aurora hissed. “No thank you.”

Lorelei laughed. Aurora ached to ask her mother if she missed her father. She ached to ask Lorelei if seeing Carter again brought back painful memories. But there was a great distance between them, a cavern.

“I have to head to the front desk to help your Aunt Allegra,” Lorelei said. “What are your plans today?”

“More film work with the guys,” Aurora answered.

Lorelei looked as though she wanted to say something, maybe offer a piece of advice. But her eyes widened and all she said was, “Wonderful. Enjoy yourself.”

They parted ways.

Aurora planned to meet the guys in the stables at half-past four. After that, they had a meeting with Benjamin Whitmore in his personal study, which he’d had refurbished to look precisely as it had before the fire.

There was an air of expectation about everything, a bubbling. It felt even more exciting than it had before they’d interviewed Marybelle, maybe because they didn’t know what to expect.

En route to the study, Kenny and Oren checked their sound equipment and their cameras to make sure that everything was set to go. Sometimes, Aurora caught Oren’s eyes on her. Sometimes, she caught Kenny’s. She wondered what they said to one another about their pursuit of her. She wondered if they’d fought about her at all. She told herself she didn’t want either of them, that her main attraction was to making a documentary and returning to the world of art.

Why did men have to make everything so complicated?

When they reached the hallway that led to Benjamin’s study, Aurora reflected on her mother’s history with her grandfather. She remembered how angry Grandpa Benjamin had been about Lorelei’s desire to leave Nantucket behind. Her heartbeat escalated, and she found herself imagining her own father behind the door of the study, waiting for her. She imagined him scolding her and saying, “I know you dropped out of business school. I know what messes you made of your life.”

But of course, he couldn’t possibly know! Could he?

Oren knocked on the door of the study, and Benjamin called for them to enter. They did, discovering Benjamin already seated in a leather-backed chair, wearing a pair of slacks and a linen button-down. He looked respectable and intelligent, his glasses little squares balanced halfway down his nose and his thick beard reminiscent of old European philosophers.

“Isn’t this wonderful?” Benjamin said as Aurora and the guys assembled their equipment. “A documentary about the history of the White Oak Lodge! I think we’re due for something like that.”

Aurora smiled and sat down before him. “Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed, Grandpa,” she said.

“I’d do anything for my granddaughter,” Benjamin said. “And Kenny and Oren, I think it’s great that you find time in your busy schedule at the stables to make your art. It’s one of the reasons we hired you, you know? We wanted well-rounded people at the Lodge. We wanted people who understood not only the history of this place but what we want it to transform into. A place for great thinkers to celebrate life!”

“It’s already becoming that.” Oren smiled.

When the camera and sound equipment were set up, Kenny said, “We’re rolling now, Mr. Whitmore.”

“Let’s get it going!” Benjamin said, rubbing his palms together. “Shall we start from the beginning? The place was built in 1862, but⁠—”

“Actually, we have some questions we want to ask you,” Oren interrupted, turning to look at Aurora. With his eyes, he seemed to tell her that it’s her time to shine.

Aurora’s throat tightened. She hadn’t expected to be frightened. But seeing her grandfather so boisterous and happy despite everything gave her pause.

“The thing is, Grandpa,” she said, “we want to talk about your father.”

Benjamin tilted his head. “My father.”

“And his loss,” Aurora continued. “We learned about what happened back in the forties. During the war.”

“Yes, my father was in the war,” Benjamin said sadly. “Many people told me, growing up, that my father was once boisterous and very happy, always one with a joke, always ready to laugh. When he got back from the war, this was not so, apparently. He’d been with my mother before the war, and he married her a couple of years after the war… but he wasn’t the same man.”

Aurora’s heart pumped. It sometimes boggled her mind to think of the millions, if not billions, of lives affected by that heinous world war.

“What did he say about his brother?” Aurora asked. “Did he ever talk about him?”

Benjamin’s lips parted with surprise. For a long time, he looked at Aurora, as though he couldn’t speak whatever language she’d said. And then he offered, “Well, his brother died when they were babies. His twin brother. So, since he never really knew him, maybe there wasn’t very much to say? Anyway, I can talk a lot about the architecture of the original White Oak Lodge. I have the plans right here…” He gestured toward a stack of aged papers on his desk.